Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Barence writes "A British man has been arrested for posting a picture of a burning poppy on Facebook. The poppy is a symbol of remembrance for those who died in war, and the arrest was made on Remembrance Sunday. 'A man from Aylesham has tonight been arrested on suspicion of malicious telecommunications,' Kent police said in a statement after the arrest. 'This follows a posting on a social network site of a burning poppy. He is currently in police custody awaiting interview.' The arrest has been criticized by legal experts. 'What was the point of winning either World War if, in 2012, someone can be casually arrested by @Kent_police for burning a poppy?' tweeted David Allen Green, who helped clear the British man who was prosecuted for a joke tweet threatening to blow up an airport."

This is in part, part of the West's battle with Islam, and is not the first time this has been done.

The government introduced a law some time ago against inciting religious hatred and so forth to prevent people burning Korans and starting a riot amongst muslims in the UK as a result.

The problem is then that some of the Islamic extremists in the UK started burning things like poppies on remembrance day, and burning the British flag and so forth. Obviously a lot of people were pissed off at the hypocrisy of this, so the Police then started enforcing the law against this sort of burning too.

Whether the guy in this case is an Islamic extremist or just a general dick who knows, but that's why we're at the point were at.

Honestly, the lesson is that this is why we can't create laws against burning the Koran - because it is fucking hypocritical for there to be protection against burning something one group holds sacred, but not things other groups hold sacred and having people hence burn them. This really is a case of the slippery slope in action - what started out as a noble plan to prevent anger in UK's Islamic population over the burning of a Koran, has now created awareness of assholes everywhere burning all sorts of different things due to it getting in the news and resulted in a complete waste of police time, time and time again.

I don't blame the police, they're simply enforcing the law fairly and making it clear that it's a two way street. The problem is that in this case, the law shouldn't exist at all whether it's for the Koran, a flag, or a poppy, but fundamentally it's got to be one or the other, either you can burn poppies, flags, and Korans, or you can burn none of them. Currently it's the latter case, so at least the law is being applied consistently and fairly which is more than can be said for a lot of laws.

Hey guys, in my religion we have three sacred elements (conveniently a solid, liquid, and gas): coal, petroleum, and natural gas. It is strictly forbidden to burn them except in specially controlled religious ways, and it would be blasphemy for people to burn them for any other reason.

You have your chronology backwards: prohibitions on desecrating British symbols weren't created after those on desecrating Muslim symbols, but, rather, the former predate the latter. Traditionally burning the UK flag was prosecuted under various treason and sedition statutes. As those fell into disuse in the 20th century, by the latter part of the century the government used general "breach of the peace" statutes to prosecute people (mostly socialists and communists) who burnt the UK flag, or otherwise dese

The problem is that in this case, the law shouldn't exist at all whether it's for the Koran, a flag, or a poppy, but fundamentally it's got to be one or the other, either you can burn poppies, flags, and Korans, or you can burn none of them

Well I, for one, hold as Sacred the following: Wood, Natural Gas and Coal. Have fun heating/powering your home without burning anything!

This is in part, part of the West's battle with Islam, and is not the first time this has been done.

The government introduced a law some time ago against inciting religious hatred and so forth to prevent people burning Korans and starting a riot amongst muslims in the UK as a result.

The problem is then that some of the Islamic extremists in the UK started burning things like poppies on remembrance day, and burning the British flag and so forth. Obviously a lot of people were pissed off at the hypocrisy of this, so the Police then started enforcing the law against this sort of burning too.

Which should server to more than amply illustrate the folly of the notion of protecting people from being offended by harmless expressions (verbal, visual, etc.).
Don't like my little stick figure of The Prophet here... 0-(--...too damn bad. Don't look at it. Don't like pictures of burning poppies? Too damn bad. Get over it. Making, and enforcing, laws that attempt to protect/prevent people from "offensive" things must, of necessity, involve an arbitrary judgement of "offensiveness". Laws like that are inv

Exactly, one of the last conversations I had with my grandfather who fought in EU during WWII was about the Illinois Nazis, it was during the time they were suing for the right to march. I asked him if that pissed him off and he said " I support their right to march, even if I don't believe in what they are marching for. The reason we fought against the Nazis was for the right to speak your mind, even if those words are rude or hateful. True freedom isn't just protecting people saying nice things but protecting even the hateful and ignorant".

I'm sure you could power most of the UK off the revolutions of the soldiers spinning in their grave, of course they've been spinning like tops for several years now, what with the UK heading more and more towards a classic Big Brother style police state. Ironic that they disbanded the pre war British Fascist society because it looks like they were simply ahead of their time sadly.

Hitler was in admiration of the British and sought an aliance prior to WWII. Our (at least) freedom could've easily be secured without a fight.

Uhm, perhaps you should look at certain other countries and how their agreements with Hitler worked out for them, before you decide that it would have been such a grand idea to trust him;-)

I have always failed to understand this much voiced argument. If Britain had not declared war on Germany (in honour of a promise to defend Poland which was utterly impractical to keep), it does not mean you had to "trust" him. Britain would not have needed to scrap its navy and dismiss its army. It could have maintained a position of neutral distrust, and should have done IMHO.

In fact Britain was militarily stronger just before the war than it was after Dunkirk. Its catastrophic involvement in trying to help the French (and Poland !) severly weakened it, not least in the loss of most of its army's equipment and troop morale. Britain was left MORE in Hitler's trust as a result. It seems that even then, after Dunkirk, Hitler withdrew from the idea of invading Britain partly because of that admiration factor mentioned by the GP poster. He would ideally have liked Germany to rule the Continent while Britain continued to run its empire (very effectively, he thought) as a useful trading partner for raw materials.

Those other countries you mention were just a land march away for the German army, then one of the most effective land forces the World has ever seen. The existence of the English Channel and the British navy (which was 4-5 times the size of the German navy) made those other invasions irrelevant to the UK however. Goering's boast of making Britain vulnerable to invasion purely by the Luftwaffe was never more practical than a boast and it degenerated into a battle of attrition between two air forces.

That is not to say that my parents and grandparents were not convinced that Hitler's main aim and obsession in life was to destroy them. Nothing would ever have convinced tham otherwise. We now know that Hitler's obsessions were largely against communists and Jewry, and the UK was not part of it.

Nice theory, but when you get to the "we now know" part, it makes me question if you understand what "know" means. Much of what you said might be true, but we most certainly don't "know" any of it. Anything that follows from the premise "if we had done (something other than what we did)" is necessarily speculation. The only question is how good the speculation is...

The fact of the matter is, Britain did not get into the war to "try to help the French (and Poland)". They did it to try to save themselves. Whether it was necessary or not is unknown, but nation-states aren't known for committing to expensive (in both lives and money) tasks for altruistic reasons. Britain did what it did because it thought that was what was best for Britain, full stop. If anyone else was helped, that's nice, but not the reason why it was done.

Anything that follows from the premise "if we had done (something other than what we did)" is necessarily speculation. The only question is how good the speculation is...

Indeed. That does forbid speculation though, and we should not abandon attempting to learn lessons from history.

The fact of the matter is, Britain did not get into the war to "try to help the French (and Poland)". They did it to try to save themselves. Whether it was necessary or not is unknown, but nation-states aren't known for committing to expensive (in both lives and money) tasks for altruistic reasons. Britain did what it did because it thought that was what was best for Britain

The immediate reason Britain declared war on Germany was because, when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Britain had promised to "help" Poland if they were invaded too. In September Germany did just that, so Britain's "help" took the form of declaring war and despatching some token long distance air raids against strategic targets in the east of Germany. Here is a reference if you need it:-

This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany." [Neville Chamberlain, 3 Sept 1939]

They did not do it "to save themselves". Britain was under no threat at the time. What is true about your statement is that it was not altruistic. Poland itself did not have a very savoury regime anyway. Britain was simply following its traditional European strategy of "balance of power" - ie supporting the weaker side to stop any one power becoming dominant (irrespective of principles), knowing that if things did go pear-shaped it could retreat to its nearly unassailable position behind the Channel. In this case it was supporting Poland and France against the militarily resurgent Germany. In th event, things went perfectly to the textbook - the weaker side collapsed anyway and Britain did retreat to behind the channel.

Nice theory, but when you get to the "we now know" part, it makes me question if you understand what "know" means. Much of what you said might be true, but we most certainly don't "know" any of it.

What I said was "We now know that Hitler's obsessions were largely against communists and Jewry, and the UK was not part of it." Do you need a reference for those being Hitler's obsessions? I should have put it more strongly in that diplomats should have known it back then too, if they had taken the trouble to read "Mein Kampf" for example or listened to his speeches properly. Funny thing was that Churchill was also an obsessed anti-communist. Just after WW1 he despatched British troops (with questionable authorisation) to assist the White Russians against the Reds. He and Stalin were hardly on speaking terms at the WWII conferences with the result that Stalin would really only negotiate with Roosevelt - and ran rings around that sick old man (one of his own aides was of the opinion that Roosevelt was not taking much in) who conceeded far too much to Stalin - to Churchill's despair.

No, some British organizations sought an alliance with Hitler BEFORE the war. And by some I mean SOME, a FEW. Remember the world was just coming out of a massive recession and some people in the Anglo world looked at Germany's recovery and Hitler's leadership as a miracle. Some people before the war thought Nazism might be the answer to their problems. After the war started, however...

Sure, but that wasn't the point I was responding to. OP was about Hitler's admiration for the British and seeking of an alliance, not the other way around, and hypothesizing that the British could have obtained an alliance had they so wished and thus avoided involvement in WWII.

Look up a fellow named Maltov, you might remember him for a certain drink in his name.

Perhaps you should have looked him up yourself. You're probably referring to the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact [wikipedia.org], and to the Molotov cocktail [wikipedia.org], a weapon named to dishonor the same Molotov.

Molotov. The Molotov Cocktail was invented and named in Finland when the USSR invaded that country. Without any antitank weapons the Fins quickly learned how to take out a Soviet tank with gasoline bombs. Finland up to that point had been neutral, but seeing how Germany had dealt with other nominally neutral countries in the past they decided that they needed to secure that strategically important flank. Molotov apparently tried his best to get Finland to ally with them but eventually the Kremlin got tired of waiting and invaded. He got the blame, as he was still assuring the Fins that the USSR would never invade them while tanks were rolling across the border. Very likely if the Kremlin had waited a few weeks the Germans would have done the same thing and Finland would have been on their side. The Finnish people put up an incredible resistance to the 800 pound gorilla before bowing to the inevitable.

The opposite is true. Some of the British aristocracy, including the king who abdicated, were supporters of Hitler and wanted to introduce Naziism into the UK. Hitler hoped to conquer the East first so that Germany would be powerful enough to defeat the British Empire. The UK entered the war a little too late for a quick victory (before the defeat of Czechoslovakia, concerted effort by the democratic countries could have destroyed Hitler.) We then had to hold out until Roosevelt was able to overcome the Nazi sympathisers in his own country and enter the War.

With Naziism a resurgent threat in Greece and trying to expand all across Europe, with American Republicans who express ideas as right wing and bonkers as those of Hitler, it's nice to know that the Kent police are so on top of things that they can find someone to deal with these serious hate crimes.

I find that last bit interesting. Exactly which Republican ideas do you consider as right wing and bonkers as those of Hitler. I ask this not in a flame attempt but out of genuine curiousity. As for the original post I find it ludicrous to arrest someone for something as harmless as posting an image of a burning poppy. I do think this is a result of the attempt to squelch free speech by labeling some speech as "hate" speech. Such things have unintended consequences. It's hard to selectively ban speech

With Naziism a resurgent threat in Greece and trying to expand all across Europe, with American Republicans who express ideas as right wing and bonkers as those of Hitler, it's nice to know that the Kent police are so on top of things that they can find someone to deal with these serious hate crimes.

I'll assume this is a troll -- on a thread about the suppression of free speech, a bit of flamebait to goad others to attack your "hate speech".
I'd have to say, it's a nice bit of ironic trolling.

Perhaps not so much. We know that many prominent Americans shared Hitler's anti-semitism (T.J. Watson, Charles Lindbergh and even F.D.R). We also know that I.B.M. [wikipedia.org] and other US corporations actively assisted Nazi Germany, with a mixture of fascistic, profit and anti-semitic motives.

As an American, I find it distasteful to harp on this, but the truth is the truth. Better we have it out in the open rather than let it fester in the wings. Just sayin'.

It would have been quite cosy. Britain already had a German monarchy (and still does). I don't think Germany would have invaded the UK if an alliance with Nazi Germany had been made. Of course Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other minorities would have gone to work camps or extermination camps, books would have been burned, all sorts of awful things. But the British ruling classes would have been fine.

True, but I think that once it had become the norm throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, other powers would have followed suit, not because they were compelled to, but because they wanted to. Britain had its own fascists who could realistically have gained power, given a "successful" Nazi role-model in Europe.

Hitler's stated goal, publicly available years before [wikipedia.org] the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (which, to be fair, was not an Alliance, but a non-aggression pact [wikipedia.org]. Yes, he still broke it, but Hitler did not betray his allies, Italy, Romania, Japan, among others), was to get some lebensraum at the expense of the Soviet Union. There was nothing to be gained invading the British Isles instead.

Hitler hoped that a peace could be worked out with the West as late as after defeating France. There's a reason he let 300.000 sol

Lets not forget that hitler and stalin made a deal to split eastern europe between them..... and that hitler broke said deal. Making a deal with the devil doesn't gaurantee they won't turn on you after

Why do people keep talking about needing a "deal" with Hitler, and Hitler needing to keep to it. You do not need a "deal". You can do nothing, but stay cautious.

Did Switzerland do a deal with Hitler? Portugal? Argentina? China? An invasion of Britain even if Hitler had really wanted it would have been about as likely to succeed as an invasion of China, given the control Britain had over the English Channel.

Did hitler really admire the british or did he just want us out of the way for a while so he could deal with other things? since he is dead we will never know for sure.

Yes, he did. In a speech he made to senior German Officers after cancelling the plans to invade Britain, he made this clear, praising Britain for running its empire effectively etc. It astonished some of his audience.

Well I for one am sick of all this "poppyganda" -- the symbol of remembrance for the dead has been coopted into the Cult of the Holy Liberation Force, as the poppy is tied into supporting troops in ongoing actions overseas.

I'm in favour of the white poppy: it is a statement that we stand in remembrance of the fallen, but with the qualification that we are against ongoing military action. For our forces to invade another country without a UN mandate, bomb, shoot and generally make mincemeat out of a lot of foreign nationals, many of whom aren't involved in any military action, and then to pin poppies to their uniforms is hypocrisy and an insult to the fallen.

Democracy is tyranny. Tyranny of the majority (mobocracy) is when the majority agrees to abuse a minority and votes to do it. For good examples of it see all of the issues surrounding wealth redistribution and taxing income, progressive taxes, business regulations, all that. Because the majority are not running businesses, they are not earning large incomes, but the majority doesn't actually have a moral problem voting to tax others to subsidize themselves.

As well as the picture, he published the words "How about that you squadey cunts". (A squaddie being British slang for a low-ranking soldier). This at a time when emotions are heightened with the Remembrance Day.

The Criminal Justice Act says:

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he— (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.

So that's the legal justification for arresting him.

I think it's an unjust law -- I believe in free speech -- but it's the police's job to uphold the law as it's written, not how it *should* be written.

Probably also worth pointing out that, unlike the US etc., the UK has no legal recognition of the right to free speech. Stupid acts like this, especially coming so soon after the recent case of offensive postings to Facebook etc. in the case of the missing April Jones, are not going to help convince politicians that maybe this is something that needs changing.

In 1998, the United Kingdom incorporated the European Convention, and the guarantee of freedom of expression it contains in Article 10, into its domestic law under the Human Rights Act. However there is a broad sweep of exceptions including threatening, abusive, or insulting speech or behavior likely to cause a breach of the peace (which has been used to prohibit racist speech targeted at individuals),[61][62] incitement,[63] incitement to racial hatred,[64] incitement to religious hatred, incitement to terrorism including encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications,[63][65] glorifying terrorism,[66][67] collection or possession of information likely to be of use to a terrorist,[68][69] treason including imagining the death of the monarch,[70] sedition,[70] obscenity, indecency including corruption of public morals and outraging public decency,[71] defamation,[72] prior restraint, restrictions on court reporting including names of victims and evidence and prejudicing or interfering with court proceedings,[73][74] prohibition of post-trial interviews with jurors,[74] scandalising the court by criticising or murmuring judges,[74][75] time, manner, and place restrictions,[76] harassment, privileged communications, trade secrets, classified material, copyright, patents, military conduct, and limitations on commercial speech such as advertising

I think it's an unjust law -- I believe in free speech -- but it's the police's job to uphold the law as it's written, not how it *should* be written.

How about the police upholding the European Convention on human rights [wikipedia.org] which IIRC sits above UK law. Article 10 grants freedom of expression except in limited, and sensible circumstances and "insulting someone else" is not one of those. In fact if this law really is as written MPs had better watch what they say outside of the commons because they seem to spend a good deal of their time being insulting and attempting to cause MPs in other parties distress.

You're right, the UK police do have a fair amount of discretion as to what action to take. Sometimes, though, if they get complaints from the public, then they'll have to be seen to do something.

To play devil's advocate; if you allow police a lot of latitude in how to enforce various laws, you're effectively giving the police a lot of power to abuse. e.g. a racist police force may choose to always prosecute certain races, whilst allowing their own racial group to be let off with a warning most of the time.

To my mind, most police in the UK will apply common-sense to situations, so I would guess that this case has to have some kind of external agitator.

Discretion can be a tricky thing though. One of my favourites is "let's let everybody drive 20 km/h over the speed limit on the highway" thing. So 99% of the time, you are ok. But once in a while a cop will be having a bad day and decide to pull you over and give you a ticket for something that people do every day. I would much rather they set the speed limits at more reasonable levels and enforce them strictly rather than let everybody drive over the speed limit all the time and use it as a way to generate money on the day you decide to start enforcing it.

Yes the police should arrest and charge you for every crime you commit. Always. No warnings. Yes the entire population of the US will be in jail - well all the police might be in jail first actually, so maybe they queue those for last. That would force the system to be changed so that everyone isn't a criminal, since that just won't work.

There is no difference between a place in which any arbitrary person can be whisked off the street/out of their homes by the police for

The police's discretion in the UK is at least partly codified, it's not really the decision of individual officers. I think that's how it should be. Sometimes the laws are written to mean no crime is committed if the suspect changes their behaviour -- e.g. "failing to surrender alcohol in a restricted drinking zone".

We probably need to be careful with language, and in any case I don't know much about this -- I've never had a warning, caution or similar.

I disagree with you. I think its the responsibility of any good citizen to ignore laws that are not just, fair, or in line with the Constitution, the Magna Carta, or etc. In fact, even if its legal within your constitution, it does not mean that it is just for right. If the people of the Civil Rights movement agreed with you, we would still have black people riding in the back of the bus in the US.

Oh we should certainly ignore laws that are unjust. Then the police should arrest us. Then we should go to court. There the law should be exposed as unjust, and overturned.

I don't think it's right to have a load of laws on the statute book which are just informally ignored. As long as they remain on the books, they retain the potential to be abused one day.

Oh we should certainly ignore laws that are unjust. Then the police should arrest us. Then we should go to court. There the law should be exposed as unjust, and overturned.

I don't think it's right to have a load of laws on the statute book which are just informally ignored. As long as they remain on the books, they retain the potential to be abused one day.

The correct way to handle that is through legislation / constitutional amendments. I believe that all laws should automatically have a 10, 20, or 40 year sunset clause (depending on the severity of the law). If the law isn't important enough to re-enact, then it is not important enough to have in the books. Of course, I also think that laws should be limited to a single 8.5x11" piece of paper, with a 16 point font. There is no point in having laws so complex that no one can understand all the nuances of

Most UK subjects do not realize that we don't actually have it. Speech is not protected in the UK and that won't get fixed until the people in the UK realize that, because of the cultural cross-contamination from the US most UK subjects think we have the same protected speech as you fellows across the pond.

That's "citizen", not "subject". Since 1983, practically nobody qualifies as a subject any more.

Speech is not protected in the UK

Yes, it is, through EU membership. Common law probably has a fair bit to say on the matter as well.

because of the cultural cross-contamination from the US most UK subjects think we have the same protected speech as you fellows across the pond.

Both the UK and the USA have limitations on the protection of speech. Lots of people fetishise the protection in the USA though, which is worrying because a belief that they have absolute freedom of speech results in an Orwellian redefining of unprotected speech as some kind of "unspeech".

We are part of the EU and we follow EU law on human rights (much as the Conservatives would like to repeal it). Article 19 of the UDHR says "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." So you are wrong.

Where we differ from the US, and I personally support this difference, is that we do not recognise that everybody has a right to insult or defame other people. As the Dean of my college remarked, many years ago, "We have people in this college of violently opposed opinions, we have Communists and capitalists, we have atheists and religious people. We expect them to discuss their differences in a civilised manner."

On Sunday last our SOF Meeting took place when the Remembrance Day procession was taking place in town. Nobody wore a poppy, and after the meeting we heard from someone who had been brought up among the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. We are not likely to have problems with the police.

This difference is a real problem. If you do not have the right to insult then the accuser can claim that they find anything you say insulting. If you make offending someone illegal (Which we practically have) you have the same problem as exists with blasphemy laws.

Basically if you don't like someone you can claim that some arbitrary view of theirs that they have published somewhere has deeply offended you, if you can add a racial or religious slant to the perceived offense then all the better. You can now get any one you don't like arrested on the grounds that they have violated the criminal justice act.

Somebody brought this to the police's attention - they don't actively "police" facebook, looking for this kind of stuff.

We in the UK have a glorious (sarcasm alert) tradition of being offended and/or taking things personally at the drop of a hat - eg Mary Whitehouse' organisation, or the braying mobs demanding "death to all paediatrics" (sic) whenever a kiddie is murdered (most often by a member of the child's family, it seems, so why aren't they calling for "death to all relatives"?).

I suspect someone, maybe a member of the armed forces or somebody close to them, has seen the poppy burning and rather than thinking "idiot, let's not give them the oxygen of publicity", has instead gone off the deep end and started "shouting the odds", stating that "I'll swing for him, I will", "death's too good for them", "I didn't fight a war for the likes of them" etc. and called the police. Notwithstanding the fact that they would normally the sort of person who decries the wasting of police team and the fact you "never see a bobby on the street these days" and "the streets aren't safe for our kids anymore".

Your argument is weakened because Mary Whitehouse was a national joke. If she complained about a TV programme, the head of the BBC used to send the producer a congratulatory memo. We in the UK are suffering from idiocy being stirred up by the gutter press.

Not disagreeing about the idiocy of the gutter press and sadly almost every newspaper splashes around in the gutter from time-to-time.

But whether MW was a joke or not (to you and I she was, but my erstwhile evangelical friends thought she had a serious point), she did represent something in our psyche - a puritanical, prudish slant to life.

Why is there no mention for those of us not in the UK what the symbolism of the poppy is. Is it like burning a flag? And why has nobody made the joke "Looks like the inmates are running the Aylesham"? Come on, it's easy.

Why is there no mention for those of us not in the UK what the symbolism of the poppy is. Is it like burning a flag? And why has nobody made the joke "Looks like the inmates are running the Aylesham"? Come on, it's easy.

Burning the poppy is probably equivalent of the Westboro baptists "Thank God for dead soldiers" posters in terms of disrespect, upset to service family members, etc

How about burning a yellow ribbon? anyone ever get arrested for that in the USA? (answer, yes [google.com] (first result))

I don't believe they were arrested for burning the yellow ribbon, I believe they were arrested for chucking a burning object at a stage. If they had burned it safely, I don't think there would have been any issue. And by burn it safely, I don't mean burn it in a crowd of people either.

Whether or not they presented a significant danger, I'd be willing to bet that them throwing it at a person on stage is 100% within the definition of (attempted?) assault, and rightfully so. What if they had overthrown it and caught the guy's suit on fire? If you want to burn flags and yellow ribbons, fine. I don't agree with it but you're within your right. If you want to throw a burning object at someone, you can spend all day in the county jail as far as I am concerned. Doesn't matter if you fell sh

Quite what it's meaning is, is a bit ambiguous. Is it an expression of pride in our war dead, or an expression of tragic sadness and desire it should never happen again? It means different things to different people.

Astonishingly, British prime minister David Cameron went on a jaunt to the Middle East to promote the British arms industry, while wearing a remembrance poppy. The same politicians who merrily continue to send cannon fodder on various foreign adventu

I laugh every year about remembrance day controversies. In Canada there was a big stink this year about how school children should be allowed to opt out of remembrance ceremonies held at school. Someone gets arrested for burning a poppy.

Last I checked these men and women fought for our freedoms. While burning a poppy, speaking negatively about veterans, or skipping remembrance ceremonies because you rather sleep in makes you a dick, these men and women fought for the right and freedom to be a dick. Forcing someone to behave a certain way, or forcing people to participate in a ceremony is counter-intuitive to what veterans have fought for.

The players in the system are people who are often prevented from exercising their better sense and judgement by their regulations and policied. "Failure to act" generally leads to being fired. Here's a good case in point.

In many of my commentaries, I have shared the fact that I spent some time as a TSA screener. I have been faced with some rather unenviable duties both as a passenger screener and as a baggage screener. For the first two+ years of TSA's existance, I knew the system pretty well. (I don't think much has changed since then) Among these duties, I had to screen people who... were not typical. While screening people, I had to do a manual patdown of a person with only one leg.

Though it seems unseemly, I actually did pat around the area where there was no leg. Something was in his pocket in that vicinity and had him pull things from his pockets. Among the items was a small bag of marijuana. I attempted to exercise my sense of better judgement and IGNORED the pot. (Oh, how I wished he told me "oh, it's green tea." because I could have easily had an out on the matter... in fact, I wish I had thought to say "oh! This must be green tea. I hear it is very healthy" giving HIM the idea...) But I attempted to ignore it. Another screener noticed it and started to report it. I had to fall into place or risk problems to myself.

The guy was held, then eventually wheeled away my police. Later, the police said "people, for such small amounts, please don't bother us?!" Policy actually changed to reflect better sense. But the fact was, there was no clear instruction at the time.

But we see policies and procedures often get in the way of better sense and judgement everywhere we go. From law enforcement to public education, we see stupid crap all day long. Are people REALLY that stupid or are we playing "CYA" too much to the point that things are simply ridiculous? I favor the second while I recognize that SOME people are not capable of particularly rational judgement.

Why is this man in trouble, the poppy is a symbol of the worst mass killings to ever take place, which is infact all war is. Lets face it, the point of war is to kill, just kill for no real reason. The difference between a serial killer and a war vet is that the war vet was told to kill by the bully at school ( The Government ) and the serial killer took it into his own hands. I have absolutely 0 respect for any solder, war vet or anyone who plays a hand in hurting humans in an act of war. This goes for both sides!

People talk about a solder as a symbol of devotion and courage, my question is why? If the government hands me a gun and tells me to shoot someone, why should that make me a symbol for my country? I think the real symbols for a country are the people who progress science, technology and medicine. They are the people who we should respect, not the guy who grabs a gun and kills in the name of his country because he doesn't question them.

You always hear saying like "You wouldn't be here if they didn't fight" or "They protected your freedom", bull crap. War happens because people can't think of non hostel ways to settle issues. How about instead of getting hundreds of thousands of your own people killed you sit down and think before you act. I'm not saying that no one has to die but not the insane number of people who do. If you have to kill even 1 innocence person for 10 bad guys then the cost isn't worth it.

I don't know how you managed to understand me so badly. Of course the point is to kill people, on the small scale. On the larger scale, it might be to prevent other people killing you. I'm cool with that.

However the solution isn't to sent our people in to kill in attempt to stop him from killing,

Yeah, pretty sure it is. You might want to look up "appeasment" and how it didn't work stopping Hitler and how war was the last resort. Actually if war hadn'

In UK Law (Communications Act [legislation.gov.uk]) it is an offence to send a offensive messages over a communications network this is the same law that makes offensive phone calls illegal and is proportionate.

An arrest in the UK is a big deal. Regardless of a conviction, it shows up on background checks in the future and limits the jobs you can get. The police get to keep youru DNA and your fingerprints for a number of years.

It also means that you can no longer visit certain countries on vacation or for work (including the USA) without going through an expensive and time consuming visa application process.

It's a big deal and it sucks that we're arresting so many people under these laws. Mr. Bean is right - section 5 of the public order act needs to go!

Slippery Slope isn't a real argument. It's a position people take when they don't have a real argument, as slipper slope can applied to pretty much anything. Try again please.

Yes and no. Properly used, it is a perfectly usable and completely valid point. Here, for instance, the point is that if they start suppressing one individual's freedom of speech, there is less of a barrier for them to start suppressing others as well. It's perfectly true, as illustrated a thousand times (at least) by history. It's an argument from induction (countless examples of human history) rather than deduction (it actually doesn't follow a priori that one action will lead to another... but in practice it usually does). As such, it does not always hold true... but it often does (and of course some people use it poorly, to argue that one thing will lead to another, unconnected thing).

Perhaps more importantly, it can only be used in combination with some argument that the first step shouldn't be taken at all, because if that step should be taken and further steps should not, then there is no slippery slope. In this case, the argument is that freedom of speech should be protected no matter who it offends, which is a pretty reasonable argument.

You can't be more subjective than what you are describing. What is "kharma-whoring" or "drama-queening"? Where exactly something crosses the line between "useful policy discussion", and "drama-queening" for example? Should any emotional outburst be outlawed? If a people cries while talkign about something should what he is talking about be dismissed, or better, outlawed?

There is no such thing as conditional free speech. Any conditional free speech is no free speech at all, because there is always someone else who will be deciding what can be said and what cannot based on his own interpretations of abstract things like "emotional acts", as you so clearly showed.

It's a positive standard: the free speech we want to protect comes in the form of political speech that is analytical, informative and discursive, thus is useful to making policy decisions.

Anything else would not be protected.

I find it amusing that your current speech would not fall under that protection. It's not analytic since it ignores obvious flaws with the idea (such as who gets to decide what speech qualifies). I doubt it's "discursive" in any sense of the word due to the lack of nuance and understanding. And it is only informative in that it informs us of your profound unfitness for making policy decisions.

This isn't subjective. It's not a question of what one person considers useful speech and another doesn't, at least unless you're trying to defend the flower-burners.

It's on a continuum, and there must necessarily be a blurry line somewhere along it where the distinction is subjective. So in giving the judiciary the ability to make that subjective decision, you genuinely do create a slippery slope, towards the point where you have "free speech" as long as you stay within boundaries set by the Establishment.

Also, I question the argument that "emotional gestures" aren't "useful". Sometimes a dramatic gesture is what it takes to draw attention to a worthy cause. For example, Suffragettes chaining themselves to railings.

Also, I question the argument that "emotional gestures" aren't "useful". Sometimes a dramatic gesture is what it takes to draw attention to a worthy cause. For example, Suffragettes chaining themselves to railings.

A single poor fruit vendor committing suicide in a very public manner...

I find this entire discussion on freedom of speech useless and therefore revoke your freedom of speech.You are not free to disagree with me nor are you allowed to argue. Since neither will change my opinion, they are useless and therefore not protected by free speech according to your own previous statements.

I have. I've spent some time in the Strangers' Gallery at the Commons, and I've compared experiences with people who have visited the House of Representatives. I can assure you that karma-whoring, drama queening and the like occur with depressing regularity in both places. Did you know that in the HoR they even have a kind of fake PR stunt where Congresspeople are filmed making speeches to an empty chamber so they can show them back home to make it look as though they are taking part in debates? At least in the UK we haven't got quite that far yet.

To a politician, "useful speech" is something that attracts votes or money.

That's what he said: "The point of free speech is to protect informative discussion and analysis of policy."
What do you think that means?

It's not really true regardless - free speech, like freedom of the press and many other rights, is an attempt to reign in corruption and tyranny. Protecting unpopular speech is just a means to an end. The GP really has a point here, he clearly wasn't trolling. Shame he was modded down just because people disagree with the point he was making.

As for the point he was making: I disagree with it. It's true that flag burning can get in the way of rational discussion, but if you've ever been to a protest you know that they aren't places for rational discourse. They're places for outrage and people doing stupid shit. You don't want the people to do this, it can really harm a good cause when a protest turns ugly, but a protest that is guaranteed to be orderly is a protest over an issue that no one cares about.

Outlawing flag burning, or outlawing cursing at authorities, or outlawing stupid chants, means outlawing protests. And as much as rational discourse is needed to find solutions to problems, protests are needed to implement those solutions. (Yes, really. Some protests are stupid, some are useless, but others have changed the world.)

The point of free speech is to protect informative discussion and analysis of policy.

No, the point of free speech is to allow me to say whatever the hell I want without fear of government reprisal, so long as I'm not stomping on someone else's rights in the process. Whose rights are being violated by this man burning a poppy? There is no right to never, ever, ever be offended.

Emotional gestures don't actually do that.

Yes, they do. Some of the most important political statements in history have been emotional gestures.

Burning flags, burning poppies, etc. express discontent but not much else. In fact, it seems to me that these events get in the way of actually having a discussion on the issue and getting closer to resolution.

Expressing discontent with your country's leadership is one of the very, very core ideas supporting freedom of speech. Expressing discontent publicly anounces to other people who aren't happy that they are not alone, allowing movements encouraging change to grow and flourish from small groups to larger ones.

The UK has been trying to be America for some time now. We're like that scrawny kid who leans out from behind the bully, pathetically supporting everything the bully does.

Last I checked, we here in the states could post a pic of a burning poppy or insult people via Twitter without getting arrested by the thought police, so I guess you're saying that the scrawny kid is trying to out-bully us?

the white poppy symbolizes the deaths of civilians during wartime rather than the red poppy which symbolizes deaths of soldiers.

In fact the white poppy symbolises all victims of all wars; civilians and soldiers on all sides.

I've considered wearing a white poppy, but I decided that whatever my intention, it's going to upset people, which I don't want to do. The red poppy means different things to different people. For some it's "Let us honour these noble sacrifices", for others it's "Let's mourn these tragic and avoidable deaths". Unfortunately in wearing the white poppy, you're at least *suggesting* to *all* wearers of red poppies, that you reject *their* reading of the symbolism.

You could wear both, of course. I choose to wear neither, and share my opinions on war in other ways.